Jailed hostel couple lose fight to clear names

By Joshua Rozenberg

12:00AM GMT 22 Dec 2000

TWO charity workers jailed for knowingly allowing heroin to be supplied at their homeless hostel in Cambridge lost their appeal against conviction yesterday.

However, the Court of Appeal said the sentences at their trial last year - five years for Ruth Wyner and four years for John Brock - were "very significantly too high". Judges said the appropriate sentences would have been 18 months. However since Wyner and Brock, both 50, had been released on bail in July after spending seven months in prison they had now served the equivalent of a 14-month sentence and would not be returned to custody. "This case must serve as a warning that no one, however well-intentioned, can with impunity permit their premises to be used for the supply of class A drugs," said the judges.

Lord Justice Rose said Judge Howarth, who presided over their trial in King's Lynn, should have directed the jury to take account of the defendants' level of knowledge of the drug dealing that had been taking place. But the appeal judge, sitting with Mr Justice Longmore and Mr Justice Ouseley, said that, even if such a direction had been given, it was "inconceivable" that the jury would have found the two not guilty. "On the evidence before them, the jury could only have concluded that both appellants were aware of, or shut their eyes to, an obviously significant level of dealing." Tom Lloyd, deputy Chief Constable of Cambridge, said his officers had received "most unfair criticism" for investigating drug dealing at the hostel.

Acting Det Supt Paul Craig, the senior investigating officer, said the residents of Cambridge had a right to be protected from the consequences of drug misuse. As the result of police investigations at the hostel, run by the charity Wintercomfort, eight drug dealers had been convicted. Richard Crowley, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Cambridge, said it had not been a prosecution brought against charities working with the homeless and destitute. "The actions of Wyner and Brock took them beyond the role set for them by the trustees of the Wintercomfort charity. It is clear that by their behaviour both defendants broke the law."

Mr Crowley stressed that charity workers who remained within the law had nothing to fear from the case. However, Wyner said that she and Brock had been "very, very disappointed" with the judgment. "Obviously, we feel very much for people currently working in projects with drug addicts as this makes their lives much more difficult. They will feel much more insecure. The judges are almost, in a sense, putting a threat of imprisonment over them unless they change their practices and these are people who are doing the most difficult job with some of the most difficult people."

Related Articles

Wyner said she believed the Misuse of Drugs Act was flawed and was considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court of Appeal had blocked their plans to appeal to the House of Lords. She said that virtually every hostel working with the homeless faced the problem of drug dealing. Officers at Holloway Prison, where she had served her sentence, were aware of people using heroin there and were unable to prevent it.